Political Economy

Randall Wray takes a bearish view of the Greek situation, the capital position of European banks and the future of the Euro.

This article was published in the NYT more than 20 years ago, forecasting precisely what has happened in Russia

Only a referendum can commit the Greek government to repay new debts imposed under austerity. Only a referendum can prevent property that is privatized from being re-nationalized. Such a transfer is not legitimate under commonly accepted…

This is the second in a two-part essay on the origins of the sovereign debt crisis. Here the emphasis is on the present situation within the euro zone and the imbalances between the core, dominated by Germany, and the euro zone periphery.

This is the first in a two-part essay on the origins of the sovereign debt crisis. Here the emphasis is on Germany’s central role in the last century and a half of European history and in the formation of the euro

Comstock Partners writes that a QE3 program is not completely off the table. It just appears at this point that the bar for doing it is so high that a prerequisite would be a collapse in the economy and a declining stock market. That would…

The Europeans are clearly trying to get comfort on the exposure to Greece in their domestic financial institutions. And if they do get that comfort, we are going to see a soft restructuring. I expect this before year’s end.

I expect a soft restructuring sometime in 2011 followed by a certain degree of dithering and a hard restructuring down the line. But, of course, the tail risk is there.

If E.U. leaders are smart, they will understand that the turmoil they fear from a Greek restructuring will be much worse if that default is a unilateral one forced by a population that has taken to the streets.

William Black writes that the non-payment of debt – including bank debt – by the nations on the periphery would lead to severe banking crises and a return to recession in the core of eurozone. This is what is behind the stance of the ECB,…